Through the Looking Glass

"'It's really, really not just time-wasting,' I interject, beginning a spiel which any long-suffering enthusiast will recognize. 'Games are incredibly complex now, they're compelling, they're edifying. We haven't been spending our time just making more and more versions of Tetris. People are creating real art, these days. Games are as intelligent a leisure pursuit as anything else.'The living room resounds with familiar, tolerant laughter. My aunt shakes her head, smiling, and leans forward in her chair. 'Come on, Kelly,' she says, looking about as mischievous as a middle-aged and middle-class Edinburgh woman can manage, 'you can't possibly say things like that and expect to be taken seriously.'"

"People don't always agree on why 'Asians are better at videogames,' but it remains a particularly complicated issue in the Street Fighter II community, no doubt because this perception of Asian and Asian-American players is reinforced by the very real presence of international competition from Japan. Very, very good international competition."

"Fortunately, machinima has inherent virtues that film is hard-pressed to match. Aside from its uniquely fast production time and low cost, machinima also shares the advantages of other computer animation, such as visionary design and fluid camera work impossible on a practical set. ... The main issue facing machinima is neither technical nor artistic. As any machinima maker can tell you, the main issue is copyright."

"In college, he was the weird guy across the hall that sat in his dorm room and played videogames nonstop. Unlike me, he was 'the gaming guy' (although I did enjoy a round of Worms on his PC, whenever I dropped by to visit). I feared, however, that such obsessions were going to land him in Steve Carell territory."

Tom Rhodes tells the story of "Annabeth & Peter," who, against all odds, found each other - and love - through the looking glass.

"The goal, according to JTEP Program Manager John Shockley, is to 'enhance the overall guard training experience and training value. [These] are real vehicles, they're doing real maneuvering, they're doing real radio communications, all that. We just simulate the bullet.'"

Russ Pitts looks at the increasingly integrated role of simulations in military training.